The invention is directed at a device for protecting a syringe needle, of the type having a needle-protecting cap made of a flexible material and a protective end-piece made of a rigid material adapted to cover the needle-protecting cap and equipped with internal means for gripping the said needle-protecting cap which are capable of entraining the latter upon the removal of the said protective end-piece.
Such protective devices are commonly used and their main objective, apart from a notion of safety, is to facilitate the removal of the needle-protecting cap which is held within the protective end-piece upon the removal of the latter.
In order to hold the needle-protecting cap, and in customary fashion, the protective end-pieces are equipped with gripping means adapted to be positioned behind the collar conventionally bordering the open end of the said needle-protecting caps, so as to abut against the said collar and cause the entrainment of these caps upon the removal of the protective end-pieces.
Although the use of such protective end-pieces allows the intended objectives to be met, they nevertheless have a major disadvantage in that they have to be force-fitted onto the cap so that the gripping means pass over the collar and tend, upon this fitting, to push away the said cap.
Now, the fact that the said cap is pushed away in this manner may have two unfortunate consequences. Firstly, it may lead to damage to the end of the needle conventionally sticking into the cap. Furthermore, it may cause the seal between the needle-protecting cap and the syringe nose to rupture at the sealing neck of the syringe.